It is known how to prepare a vermiculite paper via a standard papermaking, i.e. wet laid, process using highly dissociated vermiculite. Such dissociated vermiculite can be typically prepared, for example, by the process of U.S. Pat. No. 3,325,340, according to which crystals of vermiculite are treated with various cations to cause the vermiculite to swell to a great extent, i.e., about 30 times its original dimension, the most effective cations being primary alkylammonium cations having between 3 and 6 carbon atoms inclusive in each alkyl group, especially those of n-butylammonium, iso-butylammonium, propylammonium and iso-amylammonium. It has been discovered that while these vermiculite suspensions so produced can be utilized to form materials having many excellent properties, such materials do show a high degree of moisture sensitivity.
Copending applications Ser. No. 662,057, filed Oct. 18, 1984, and Ser. No. 715,973, filed Mar. 25, 1985, disclose a method of making water-resistant films and silicate materials that comprises conducting an ion exchange reaction on said dissociated vermiculite utilizing, respectively, specified guanidine cation analogs and multiamine derived cations, both of which are defined therein, as the exchange cations to thereby form a flocced vermiculite material from which a film or paper can be made that has a high degree of water resistance and high temperature resistance.